BLOSSOMDROP IN THE SKY

BLOSSOM DROP IN THE SKY

SIXTEENTH-CENTURY

       That was a summer evening. It was getting dark. Some time had elapsed after the setting of the sun. The sky was full of twinkling objects. Abhijeet finished his dinner and came out of the house. He looked up and as usual, was amazed by the glittering little spots in the sky. What must that be? He was lost in thoughts. His father came out and found Abhijeet engrossed looking at the skies.

“What are you thinking my child?”

“What are those sparkling little things in the sky? They are so many occupying the entire heaven. Some are small. But a few are big. While some are bright, many are faint. They make the night sky so wonderful!”

“Abhijeet, those are the blossoms fallen from the trees in the garden of GOD. The garden is very big and there are many, uncountable trees in the garden. In the evening, the blossoms on the trees drop and we see them shining, glittering.   By the morning somebody in the heaven sweeps them off. But again in the night, the blossom falls. The garden in heaven is so very big and there are so many flowering trees in there, that this huge sky gets fully covered by blossom drops. Splendid. Isn't  it?"

“Yes. Indeed. I want to see those flowers. Touch them. Feel them. Smell them. Can we go to that garden? I am very keen.”

“No child. We cannot go to that garden. It is far off. Only GOD stays that far off. We cannot even think of it.”

Little Abhijeet was disappointed. His spirit was dampened. He went back inside the house and slept on his bed dreaming about enormous garden, the very large number of trees and the innumerable flowers falling.

*****

TWENTIETH-CENTURY

On that wintery day, the sun was set much earlier. Little Aryan had reached the village of his Grandfather to enjoy the Diwali vacation there. He was tired and was preparing to sleep. Just then he peeped out of the window of his Grandfather’s house. And he was startled to see so many twinkling things in the sky. ‘What that must be?’ He called his Grandfather and asked him about those glittering things in the sky.

“What are those sparkling little things in the sky? They are so many occupying the entire heaven. Some are small. But a few are big. While some are bright, many are faint. They make the night sky so wonderful!” Aryan enquired.

“My child, those are the planets and stars in the universe. The planets are in our solar system. They are like our earth. Some of them are much bigger than our earth. We have one satellite, that we call moon. It is the celestial object closest to the earth. Once a month it shines with full brightness. Once every month, it disappears completely. On that night we can see maximum stars in the sky. The stars are like our sun. A few stars are many times bigger than our sun. But they all are far away. So even the big stars look as small as planets of our solar system. Some billion years ago our solar system was formed. The invention of the telescope has made it possible to see into space. Countries like the US, USSR are trying to send human beings onto our moon, that is a satellite of our earth and planets like Mars. There is no atmosphere there. So it is going to be difficult to land a human being there. But very soon that will happen. The first step towards it is to send a man into the space. The USSR has already sent Yuri Gagarin into the space. With that experience, the human can try to step on the moon where there is no atmosphere. The next step would be going on to the Mars.“

*****                                        

TWENTY-THIRD CENTURY

                After sunset, when it was getting dark, little Aniket with his father came out onto the terrace of the 130-storey building where he was staying on the 101^st floor. He looked up and was dazzled by the sparkling stars in the sky.

“What are those sparkling little things in the sky? They are so many occupying the entire heaven. Some are small. But a few are big. While some are bright, many are faint. They make the night sky so wonderful!” wondered innocent Aniket.

"Oh. Eight of them are the planets of our solar system, But the rest of the millions are the stars of the cosmos. Planets of our solar system are a few A.U. away from our earth. But the stars are much farther ranging from few light years to hundreds of light years. Now since we have installed WEB SPACE TELESCOPE in the space much beyond our moon, we can see much deeper into the space. The stars have their own system of planets. There is a possibility of some life similar to we human being on some of the planets” father explained.

Aniket’s curiosity reached very high. “Can we go to some star to see the planets there?”

“Yes, why not. There are millions of galaxies in our Universe. And each galaxy has billions of stars. Our galaxy is named as Milky Way. Of the billions of stars in the milky way, the closest star to the earth is Proxima Centauri,

We will book two seats on the intra galaxy space shuttle and certainly, we will be able to see the planets of the solar system of the star Proxima Centauri the closest  star in our galaxy, the Milky Way.

On the way, we can have a glimpse of the rings of our Saturn as well as Jupiter. So now you go to sleep. Tomorrow we will have to board the intra galactic flight. Okay. Let us get into our house and take a quick nap to be fresh for the flight.”

They came back into their house. Aniket jumped into his bed and was dreaming about their intra galaxy flight the next day.